Some cute "List" verbiage from Amazon:

-----------------------------------------

The theory goes that alpha males get all of the chicks.

And, all you have to do to get all of the women to love you is to be an alpha male. And, most alpha males are jerks--actually all alpha males are jerks. So, that's why all of the women are attracted to jerks.

Note that all jerks are not alpha males, so you can't get a woman to like you by being a jerk. The being a jerk is just an after effect. The alpha male is what will make women want you. So, don't try to be a jerk. Try to be an alpha male, and you will naturally be a jerk. You don't have to try.

Alpha male originates from the animal kingdom, where all groups of animals rank themselves in order from alpha to omega.

This is not much different than the social system with men, the only difference being that the hierarchy of men has people at the the same level as each other sometimes, but I'm getting off the subject.

Nowhere is there more proof that women are attracted to the alpha male than in the book 'The Rules(TM) : Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right'. This book talks about how to get the alpha male to fall in love with you. It doesn't talk about betas or anything but alphas. It only talks about how a woman can attract an alpha male.

The best book that I've read on how to be an alpha male is 'The System: How to Get Laid Today!'. The incredibly surprising thing about this book is how almost exactly similar this book is to The Rules. The tactics are almost exactly the same in both books, which is surprising, because one book is about how to go to bed with a woman within 15 minutes of meeting her, and the other book is about how to get a man to marry you and love you forever.

More simply, regard everything as a dream. Life is a dream. Death is also a dream, for that matter; waking is a dream and sleeping is a dream. Another way to put this is: 'Every situation is a passing memory.'

It is said that with these slogans that are pointing to absolute truth - openness - one should not say 'Oh, yes, I know,' but that one should just allow a mental gap to open, and wonder, 'Could it be? Am I dreaming this?' Pinch yourself. Dreams are just as convincing as waking reality. You could begin to contemplate the fact that things are not as solid or as reliable as they seem.

Have you ever been caught in the heavy-duty scenario of feeling defeated and hurt, and then somehow, for no particular reason, you just drop it? It just goes, and you wonder why you made 'Much ado about nothing.' What was that all about? It also happens when you fall in love with somebody; you're so completely into thinking about the person twenty-four hours a day. You are haunted and you want him or her so badly. Then a little while later, 'I don't know where we went wrong, but the feeling's gone and I just can't get it back.' We all know this feeling of how we make things a big deal and then realize that we're making a lot out of nothing.

Gentleness in our practice...is like remembering something. This compassion, this clarity, this openness are like something we've forgotten. Sitting here being gentle with ourselves, we're rediscovering something. It's like a mother reuniting with her child; having been lost to each other for a long, long time, they reunite. The way to reunite with Bodhichitta is to lighten up in your practice and in your whole life.

That's the essential meaning of the absolute Bodhichitta slogans - to connect with the open, spacious quality of your mind, so that you can see that there's no need to shut down and make such a big deal about everything.

- Pema Chodron

JS: Does it mean that all Bagua movements are designed in such a way that one must have Neigong first to be really able to use them?

MR.MA: Exactly. Without Neigong all Bagua techniques are good for nothing and there is no use to practice them. For this reason I'm not willing to teach any techniques to students who do not have Internal Skill - it's waste of time for them and me.

JS: I guess very few people can learn in this traditional way?

MR.MA: Yes, practitioners often feel that walking exercise is very boring and give it up after some time. However once your Neigong develops, once the Small Heavenly Circle opens, the practice becomes very interesting.

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.
Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.

That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in resonance with your world. Use it for once.
To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

"The thought 'who am I?' (or 'what am i') will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization."
~ Ramana Maharshi


In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. -- Ellen DeGeneres


http://www.livejournal.com/users/whonowz/
It seems a lot of folks want to change something (psychological) about themselves, be less angry, more compassionate, less judgemental, more tolerant, less compulsive, on and on. There are countless methods/practices/schemes across myriad cultures to supposedly help in this endeavor. Can't help but feel though, that the one wanting to improve itself only exists as a mental image, an illusion. An image can certainly be improved (according to imagined ideals), become more tolerant, less compulsive, etc, but it doesn't seem to be what we are, more an image that is identified with. What we are appears to remain untouched by all these 'shenanigans'.

When faced with this realization, thoughts, ideas, and schemes all tend to come to a halt. When I don't push or pull to be somewhere or something else, what is simply is. In this 'stillness' there is attentiveness. It's felt that this silent attentiveness is beyond all ideas of love or compassion, all concepts of meeting or relationship. In the intensity of the moment all distance disappears and whatever comes into awareness is simply felt, intimately.

Besides, what interest do I have in doing karate “properly?” Just who am I doing this karate for, anyway?

Rob Redmond

Death Experience

Rainer Maria Rilke

We know nothing of this going away,
that shares nothing with us.
We have no reason,
whether astonishment and love or hate,
to display Death, whom a fantastic mask of tragic lament
astonishingly disfigures.

Now the world is still full of roles
which we play as long as we make sure,
that, like it or not, Death plays, too,
although he does not please us.

But when you left, a strip of reality broke upon the stage
through the very opening
through which you vanished:
Green, true green, true sunshine, true forest.

We continue our play.

Picking up gestures now and then,
and anxiously reciting that which was difficult to learn;
but your far away, removed out of our performance existence,
sometimes overcomes us, as an awareness
descending upon us of this very reality,
so that for a while we play Life rapturously,
not thinking of any applause.

What's the spring breathing jasmine and rose?
What's the summer with all its gay train?
What's the splendor of autumn to those
Who've bartered their freedom for gain?

- Both Sides the Tweed (trad.)

People who believe that things will get better if we can just get rid of Bush are like smokers who believe they can avoid cancer by changing brands.

-Jay Hanson

"Never interrupt an opponent when he is making a mistake"

- Napolean Bonaparte

When begged by some devotees to cure himself with yogic powers, Ramakrishna agreed to ask his Divine Mother Kali. He went to the temple and humbly requested, "Mother, please let me eat a little in order to keep the body together." Goddess Kali replied, "You are eating through all mouths. Why do you have to eat through this mouth?"

When a poem speaks to you
it's as if you just spoke to yourself.
- Eric Ashford

Let us consider Ramana Maharshi's death. At seventy, he developed a tumor on his arm which was operated on several times without anesthetic. Ramana tried to clarify the meaning, or lack of meaning, of pain and illness for the totally illuminated person: "They take this body for Ramana and attribute suffering to him. What a pity! Where is pain if there is no mind?" The approach of Ramana was not that of the healer who removes pain but that of the sage who perceives all phenomena, including pain, as Ultimate Consciousness. Years before, Ramana had elucidated this point: "If the hand of the jnani, or knower of Truth, were cut with a knife, there would be pain as with anyone else, but because his mind is in bliss, he does not feel the pain as acutely as others do."

The seed of wisdom did I sow
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the harvest that I reaped --
I came like water, and like wind I go.

~ Omar Khayyam, The Rubáiyát